Tuesday, May 23, 2017

BLOCK CALLISTA. BOYCOTT HANNITY. WALK OUT ON INFOWARS.

Margaret Sullivan, The Washington Post's media columnist, is right to upset about these developments:

Infowars, that cesspool of destructive conspiracy theories, on Monday received a temporary credential to attend White House press briefings....

In the past, please recall, what constituted “news” at Infowars included the following: that 9/11 was planned and executed by the U.S. government; that President Obama was not an American citizen; and that the massacre of small children at Connecticut’s Sandy Hook Elementary School was a hoax carried out by actors.

Infowars’ inclusion (even if only temporarily) in the White House press corps is disgusting.

But no more disgusting than the lies that Fox News continues to spread about Seth Rich, a 27-year-old man who was shot dead last summer in Washington.

To hear Fox’s Sean Hannity tell it, this was an inside job by the Democratic National Committee, where Rich worked: retribution by the Hillary Clinton camp for his sharing insider emails with WikiLeaks.

The theory has been thoroughly debunked by Oliver Darcy at CNN among others, and Rich’s family has demanded that Fox retract and apologize. To the reported embarrassment of its own staff, Fox hasn’t done the right thing.

Decent people should do more than that. In the case of InfoWars, the rest of the White House press corps should simply walk out of any press briefing attended by the organization's correspondent -- who, I gather, is this guy:

Which probably should have been the reaction to Fox News sometime in the past twenty years, but that ship has sailed. For now, it's time for a Sleeping Giants-style boycott targeting Hannity's advertisers. And if some Bernie-or-Busters don't want to participate, well, this one is open to anyone in the center or right who's disgusted by Hannity's conspiracy-mongering. (Some of you conservatives are disgusted ... aren't you?)

As for Gingrich: His wife is the president's nominee to be ambassador to the Vatican. If (as I assume) no Republican senator is willing to vote against her confirmation, then some Democratic senator should put a hold on her nomination.

I got pushback when I said this on Twitter over the weekend:

Well, I must say, she is not her husband. Sometimes this is not clear with people, that a wife is not her husband. https://t.co/ilrcRhyt1x

I understand the argument. But Newt and Callista are not merely spouses -- they're professional collaborators. From the website of Gingrich Productions:

Together, Newt and Callista host and produce historical and public policy documentaries, write books and newsletters, give speeches, record audio books, produce photographic essays, and make television and radio appearances. Gingrich Productions also offers strategic planning, consulting, and training for organizations seeking to solve public policy concerns. We have unique strengths and experience in health, learning, national security, and politics. We also help develop messaging with an emphasis on earned and social media.

In the dissemination of political messages, they're partners. If they disagree on any issue, they've never said so. So unless Callista specifically denounces her husband's baseless and cynical conspiracy-mongering, she doesn't deserve a full Senate vote, much less an ambassadorship.